


Of Cats and Men

by delcrafts



Series: TwoBats [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Harvey Is Jealous, M/M, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-07 07:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14076096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delcrafts/pseuds/delcrafts
Summary: Harvey Dent does not like Selina Kyle. He dislikes her even more when she starts dating his best friend, Bruce Wayne. His aggravated rant about her to Bruce brings to surface some underlying issues in the relationship that make Bruce question how good for him Selina really is.





	Of Cats and Men

**Author's Note:**

> This fic does cover Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in a relationship. Their relationship isn't healthy! She is negligent of Bruce's feelings, literally steals his things, would be cheating on him if he wasn't also (unbeknownst to her) Batman, and at times is emotionally manipulative. If you have issues reading about unhealthy relationships, this fic may not be for you. If you are with someone who displays traits like this, I seriously recommend questioning whether that relationship is good for your mental health. You are important and valued, and deserve someone who will value you and truly care about you.

Harvey and Bruce tried to make time to catch up with each other weekly; sometimes it was lunch, sometimes dinner and a movie, sometimes it was just a drawn out phone call while they made their separate ways to and from work. Nonetheless, they spoke very regularly, and very fondly. They were friends, only friends, but if one listened to their conversations or saw the way they looked at each other, it wouldn’t appear as if they were only friends.

Harvey desperately wanted to do something, to reach out, to perhaps just say it for once, though he supposed both could and should be true at once. However, words always escaped him in this situation. It could have been that he was unable to phrase a confession, or perhaps he had trouble agreeing with himself over whether actions or words suited such a thing, or even— most likely— he was too scared of ruining their careful friendship as it was now, and losing the only thing that he really could depend on in his life: Bruce.

The fact they were only friends didn’t stop him from getting jealous, and lord, did he get jealous. Every time he saw her number on his phone, every time her name left his lips, Harvey’s stomach would twist with a quiet anger. Bruce deserved better than some back-stabbing, gold-digging kleptomaniac in a pleather bodysuit, not that he would ever tell Selina so, never to her face; he enjoyed having all his body parts attached to his body. He endured, though, because she made Bruce happy when she wasn’t stressing him to death with her “career”, and it was worth it to see his amber eyes sparkle with delight when his phone rang with her ring tone, even if Harvey wished so desperately that it was him who made Bruce smile like that. He never smiled, not really, and his too-rare smile was so beautiful.

Harvey knew the danger of keeping things bottled up, but he absolutely could not tell a soul about this, so he didn’t. He didn’t say a word of it for weeks. She had never interrupted their time, so it wasn’t as if she was really interfering with his relationship with Bruce.

That is, until she did.

It was around 1:30 in the afternoon, a brisk february day. They were inside some street café, eating an overpriced lunch and talking. Bruce cut himself off mid-sentence to answer the phone, excusing himself with a small “Sorry, it’s Selina.”

Harvey heaved an exasperated sigh and waited, stabbing at his food with his fork maliciously. As soon as Bruce was off the phone, Harvey opened his mouth to speak.

“Sorry Harv, Selina’s in a bit of a predicament, I… have to run. Again, so sorry. Maybe tomorrow?” Dent couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“No, Bruce. No. She’s nothing but problems. For you, for me, for everyone. You’re not going anywhere, because this is our lunch. Bruce-And-Harv lunch. Not Bruce-And-Harvey-And-Selina lunch.” Harvey frustratedly explained.

“She’s in jail, Harvey!” Bruce snaps back. He wanted to be there for everyone, to spend time with Harvey and help his girlfriend. That just wasn’t possible though.

“Obviously there’s a reason for that!” Harv had a point. Selina was a known criminal, and she still hadn’t quit, even after seeing the stress it put on Bruce.

“But she’s-”

“Abusive,” Harvey cut him off. “You deserve better than her. Besides, we’re pretty sure she’s cheating on you.”

“With who?” Bruce was incredulous.

“Batman.”

“Are you jealous?”

He takes an angry stab at his salad, not meeting Bruce’s eyes. “What?! No! Why would we be jealous? We just think you deserve someone better than a cheating, lying criminal who can’t spare you the decency of even being faithful! We care about you! A lot! A lot! And you’re going to get hurt.

“We know her better than you do. We worked with her. She’s manipulative. She’ll seduce you and take your money, like she does with every other rich bastard that wants a piece of her ass. She doesn’t care about anything but herself and her cats. Not you, not the law, not anything.” With the wailing of a siren somewhere in the distance, one might assume that was somehow related to recent jailing of Miss Kyle. “We rest our case.”

Bruce was… hurt. He thought, even if Harvey didn’t necessarily like Selina, he could at least put up with her. Worse yet, he saw that Dent was at least somewhat correct. Admitting that, though, would be admitting he probably should break up with his girlfriend. Frustrated, he decided to leave. Throwing a fifty on the table, he stated “For the lunch” and left without even a goodbye.

Harvey glared, ireful, yet said no word of protest. Bruce could do as he pleased; he was an adult, but seriously? He was smart! Couldn’t he see Selina was using him?

~~~

Selina Kyle was untameable— a wild animal. This was common knowledge. Bruce feared that having a conversation about her choice of profession may enrage her, and thus endanger his relationship and possibly a few priceless artifacts around his home, but he didn’t fear she would be any threat. He paced his living room in anticipation. She should have been there any time now, and he hoped she actually used the front door this time.

When a gust of wind blew from the hall behind him, Bruce knew his hopes fell flat. Nonetheless, the conversation had to happen. She was jailed today, for christ’s sake! He couldn’t let her keep doing this.

“Bruce.” It was as if she simply apparated into the room.

“Selina, darling, we have to talk.”

“About what?” Even suspicious of his ideas, Selina’s voice had an effortless sound to it. She sat down on the long couch that served as a focal point of the reception room, folding one leg under her as she leaned back on the couch. The pose looked uncomfortable, yet she didn’t show any signs of being the least bit bothered.

Bruce sat down beside her, brows furrowed in thought. This wasn’t a particularly easy topic to talk about. “You were arrested today,” he states. It was best to start with the facts.

“Yes, I was.”

“I can’t bail you out of jail again. I can’t let you keep robbing people blind. I love you, Selina, but this… you can’t keep doing this. It’s not good, not for you or me and definitely not for the people and institutions you’re robbing. Name anything you want, and I’ll give it to you. Just please, please stop the theft. I love you.” At some point while speaking, he had taken her hand. She wasn’t even looking at him, eyes cast down in what appeared remorse.

“I don’t want to, I’m sure you know that. I don't know if I even can," she sounded almost remorseful, and offered him a halfhearted grin, "But… if it means being with you, I’ll try.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled tightly. “Thank you. Dinner here, tomorrow at eight?”

She reciprocates the gesture, places a small kiss on his cheek, and got up off the couch. Bruce was hesitant to let go of her hand, but did so when she strayed out of arm’s length and down through the hallway from whence she had previously appeared from, passing through a couple rooms on her way out the window.

“Master Wayne?” Alfred comes from down the hallway.

“Yes, Alfred?” He was tired, but not about to be rude to Alfred.

“I believe I just saw Miss Kyle leaving through the window with your mother’s Ming Dynasty vase.” Bruce just huffed and fell back dramatically on the couch. Not moments later, Harvey’s signature series of knocks sounded from the main door. At least some guests use doors. “I’ll get that, sir.”

With some degree of exhaustion, Bruce pondered who on earth would be bothering him now. It was about six in the evening; this made it too late for business meetings or the press to be the ones disturbing his peace. Alfred walked the short stint from the hall opening to the doorway, opening the door. He engages in some short banter with Harvey on their way to the reception room. Bruce could discern some degree of unwellness in the way Harv was appeared; his posture and expression were both rather telling. Still, he didn’t bother to greet his friend.

Harvey sat down beside where Bruce was laying. Both opened their mouths to speak, and both stopped to let the other continue.

“You first,” Bruce offered.

“I was just going to apologize. We weren’t on our… best behavior at lunch today.” Bruce flinched when Harvey referred to himself as plural. Had he done that earlier in their spat as well?

“No…” Pulling himself up with the arm of the couch, Bruce looked guilty. He hated apologizing, to some extent. “You were right. I spoke to Selina, and she stole my mom’s vase.”

“The really expensive blue one?”

“Yeah.”

Harvey shrugs, his fouler mood abandoned with Bruce’s admittance of the issue. It was a small thing, but it made his night knowing Bruce actually listened to what he said earlier; his reaction at the time made it seem as if he hadn’t. It seemed like his past somehow caused most words he said now to fall on deaf ears, and it truly scared him to think that Bruce was in that majority. “It was ugly anyways.”

This response, while earning an annoyed exhale from Alfred (who rather liked the late Mrs. Wayne’s vase), elicited something like an amused snort from Bruce. “But expensive.”

“Yeah. Are you gonna break up with her?”

“Probably… yes.”

“Good. This’ll be good for you.” He smiled sympathetically.

“I just…” Bruce trails off for a moment, sitting upright, “I really love her. I want her to get better, but she won’t. She just won’t.” He sounded genuinely upset.

“Some people don’t want to. Some people like being like she is,” Harvey couldn’t help but think about the friends he lost when he started working toward getting better. He sighed, and leaned against Bruce’s shoulder. “You just have to accept that you can’t help everyone, and you deserve better than to be dragged down by them.”

“I know, but I want to, and I’ll try.”

“And I love you for that.”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been done for.. wow, a while now. I just am not as happy with it as I was the first in this set. Bruce and Harvey are both very versatile characters in the way their personalities seem to really mold to who they happen to be around and how they feel about the person (as well as whether you speak to Batman or Bruce / Harvey or Two-Face), and it's taking me a while to feel comfortable with writing them in different situations. I'm confident, though, that with practice and a lot of effort I'll get more in-character with them. Just forgive the roughness of it, I suppose.


End file.
